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ARTISTS CONTRACTS AND ARTISTS RIGHTSFokus Grupa

The genealogy of the manifesto in the arts can be traced back to political proclamations documents which put forth an agenda of certain political programs and goals. This is not surprising as artists and intellectuals have had increasing involvement in political affairs since the 19th century. Agitating for political/artistic claims was therefore a natural, unreserved process for avant-garde artists who arguably inaugurated the use of manifestos in the arts. Art manifestos have become so important that the avant-garde was canonized largely relying on the self-identification scriptural practices of different artistic groups expressing their programs and goals. For example, Alfred Barrs famous 1936 diagram for the MoMA exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art, which presented the development of modern art in the West, singled out several early modernist and avant-garde movements, at least half of which were self-identified groups around their respective manifestos.1

Even though they were developed from the rhetoric of social and political agitation, the proclamations espoused in art manifestos have been largely embraced by the art world perhaps as a consequence of their simple and direct way of address. Indeed, art manifestos have come to be more commonly perceived as art ephemera or as art works in and of themselves, rather than operative ideas to be put into practice in order to achieve certain goals. To be sure the manifesto reflects individual or group agendas of what the art world and even the world is and what it should become, often using agitational rhetoric to prescribe future developments.

Approximately at the same time as the art manifesto emerged, a different type of textual promotion of artistic practices arose in the context of the Russian avant-garde. In line with the ideals of the 1917 Russian revolution, Kazimir Malevich drafted one of the earliest documents dealing with artists rights entitled Deklaratsiya prav khudozhnika: Zhizn khudozhnika (Artists Rights Declaration: The Artists Life) published in Anarchya (Anarchy) in June 1918. Oriented towards art as labor and artists as workers, Malevichs text defines artistic practice in the context of the legal and economic frameworks at play after the art work leaves

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the possession of its producer. This type of agreement, even though in many ways similarly utopian in its goals as the art manifesto, was nonetheless grounded in a legal rhetoric.

In line with their preoccupation with textual instructions, documents, definitions etc., conceptual practices of the 1960s and 1970s further developed such agreements designed to protect artists and their work, as opposed to the contract which usually benefits the buyer or the dealer.

Weather challenging bourgeois tastes, expanding the field of art or resisting commodification of art works/practices, both the manifesto and the contract function in two different ways. While manifestos intentionally work against the grain of the art world, they have nevertheless been historicized as merely art ephemera; meanwhile, contracts, which mainly intend to regulate the art system instead of revolutionizing it, have been raised at the level of art works as they closely resemble the textual instructions, documents, definitions which entered the 1960s conceptual practices.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, objects such as the urinal, originally a functional design object, have been used to expand the understanding of what is perceived as art Duchamps example is used when a project is denied the status of art. Furthermore, as Boris Groys observed: Looking for modern art in todays museums, one must realize that what is to be seen there as art is, above all, defunctionalized design fragments, be it mass-cultural design, from Duchamps urinal to Warhols Brillo Boxes, or utopian design thatfrom Jugendstil to Bauhaus, from the Russian avant-garde to Donald Juddsought to give shape to the new life of the future. Art is design that has become dysfunctional because the society that provided the basis for it suffered a historical collapse, like the Inca Empire or Soviet Russia.2

Maria Eichhorns project The Artists Contracts shows contracts as case studies in a context of an exhibition. In the interviews Eichhorn conducted in the related publication3 artist Daniel Buren explicitly differentiated his artistic work from the contract he devised. This is not the case with others. Adrien Piper for example, included a clause in the contract, which very much resembles her artistic strategies: No single work by the Artist shall be sold by the Dealer at a percentage discount since it is already subject to the 50% Off Black Artist Discount and 25% Off Women Artist Discount.

It would be tempting to conclude that what the manifesto was for the avant-garde, the artist agreement/contract was for conceptual art. Both the manifesto and the artist agreement are still thriving to this day, but the relevance of the manifesto has obviously decreased with the end of modernism, while the need to regulate and maintain the existing system has become more relevant since the 1960s. Looking

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at the wider political context, one might say that at least in the Western context, the language of arms has been substituted by the more benevolent language of the law.

The research of Fokus groupa began in 2009 with a project carrying a somewhat misleading title Art and Market.4 We investigated different case studies, contracts and actions by artists and self-identified art workers dealing with artists rights as well as art works that negotiate the established production process, the distribution and the circulation of art. We have published our research, which was initially presented in the form of a lecture-discussion, as a newspaper and as a website. With every new presentation and discussions we gained different insights into specific case studies from different parts of the world and art contexts.5

Since 2011 we have begun to work in a somewhat different way. Continuing our research into the politics of art we created an open series of drawings, work in progress entitled Pjevam da mi proe vrijeme( I Sing to Pass the Time )6 based on various visual documents of political and or legal interventions by artists and art workers throughout the 20th century. Contrary to the outlined presentation of Art&Market, Pjevam da mi proe vrijeme consists of drawings, which are indexes of different treads of open research that are continuously added to the project.

In 2012, we were invited to organize an event in the framework of the program Micropolitics organized by [BLOK] Local Base for Culture Refreshment, dealing with the relationship between art and money.7 Our afore-mentioned projects gave us an insight into a fair amount of cases where artists and art workers approached the art system as a field in which political and ideological issues are pursued. Thinking of the format for the Micropolitics event, we decided to organize a workshop. Entitled Artist Contracts as Artistic Manifestos, the workshop emphasized that the need to self-organize, to be involved in the circulation of art works, to be protective of the intended meaning of the work of art, in other words to draft an agreement, is a reflection of a certain value system.

Even though many of the contracts were drafted with the intention to be used for all types of artistic production, nonetheless, all of the agreements we came across were produced by those who involved in conceptual or context-based practices. This might also be the result of our own practice as well as our interests in the wider context of art. We also observed that agreements drafted by conceptual artists such as Seth Siegelaubs from the US or Sanja Ivekovi and Dalibor Martinis from Yugoslavia, havent been enthusiastically received by institutions, gallerists and collectors.8

Working with different art practitioners and students, we tried to discuss the need to view ones work as part of a wider economical and political framework and think of the different ways in which we can be responsible for the use and misuse ofartistic labor.

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We started the workshop with analyzing and discussing specific agreements9, trough which participants of the workshop could better reflect on their own position towards the circulation and presentation of their work. Finally, all the participants including ourselves drafted a hypothetical agreement that could be employed after a consultation with a lawyer in a legal system in a specific context, which essentially expresses what each author of the contract finds relevant for her/his/ practice.

Endnotes1 More information about Barrs diagram here: http://www.moma.org/learn/resources/archives/archives_highlights_02_19362 See Boris Groys, Politics of instalation: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/politics-of-installation/#_ftnref23 See Maria Eichhorn, ed., The Artists Contracts, Kln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Knig4 Art&Market [There is No Art Without Consequences] is an art related research project started on a three-month residency in Republic of Korea were we engaged with questions such as arts relation to money, as well as arts position in gentrification processes and inherent power relations within public space. The title Art&Market, what we came to understand later, to many evoked a manual, a set of instructions on how to enter the art market.5 For more information on Fokus Grupas Art and Market project see: http://artandmarket.fokusgrupa.net/6 Pjevam da mi proe vrijeme is a title appropiated from a song by Croatian singer/songwriter Arsen Dedi, which deals with a disbelief in political potential of activism in music.7 See more at: http://mikropolitike.blok.hr8 These artistic contracts are reproduced below.9 For the workshop we analyzed agreements by: Seth Siegelaub, Lawrence Weiner, Adrian Piper, Daniel Buren, Sanja Ivekovi and Dalibor Martinis.

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Artistic AgreementSanja Ivekovi and Dalibor Martinis

ARTISTSurname, name _____________________Address ___________________________Account No ________________________(later in the text referred to as Artist)

ORGANIZATION OF COLLECTIVE LABOR: ________________________Address ___________________________Account No _____________________(later in the text referred to as: Gallery)

Artist and the Gallery have drafted on the (date)_____________ in (place)_________________ this

AGREEMENT

On conditions of public presentation of artworks in organizations of collective labor in the field of culture or in the organizations of collective labor with an independent cultural program

1. PRODUCTION

1.01. Author will lend the following artworks or organize the following event to be exhibited/presented in the Gallery:_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1.02. Author will exhibit mentioned artworks or realize the mentioned artistic event in the Gallery (or in another space arranged for by the Gallery)from (date)______________ to _(date)______________

1.03. Mentioned artworks/event will be exhibited/produced in _________________________ part of the Gallery space occupying approximately __________(size) and will not be confined in-between any other artworks.

1.04. Aforementioned artworks or concept of the mentioned artistic event the Artist will submit to the Gallery on the (date)_________________ in a fitting state to be exhibited/realized, accept if it was agreed otherwise.

1.05. Costs of transportation of afore-mentioned artworks to the Galley is the responsibility of ________________ and the costs of transport from the Gallery to the Author is the responsibility of ______________________.

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1.06. Once the works are delivered to the Gallery all other costs are the responsibility of the Gallery.

1.07. The gallery takes the responsibility to exhibit all the mentioned artworks or realize the mentioned artistic manifestation. Each possible modification has to be consulted with the Author.

2. REMUNERATION

2.01. The Gallery is obliged to reimburse the Author with the following amount as a remuneration for:

a) renting the artworks __________________________________________ b) for the concept/realization of the artistic event ____________________ c) other: ________________________________________________________

2.02. Remuneration from the following article of this agreement amounts to __________ % of the net amount at the disposal of the Gallery allocated for the mentioned exhibition/event.

2.03. The Gallery will reimburse the Artist in the statutory term after receiving the invoice.

2.04. In the case that the Gallery cancels the agreed exhibition/event the Gallery is obliged to reimburse the Artist equivalent to the 50% of the remuneration agreed upon.

3. PRODUCTION

3.01. Gallery commits itself to ensure the supplementary resources, professional and technical assistance necessary for appropriate exhibition/event set up/realization.

3.02. The Artist commits himself/herself to collaborate on the set up of the exhibition, or the realization of the event unless some other agreement is reached.

4. DOCUMENTATION

4.01. Exhibition/event will be documented in the following manner:

a) photographed b) filmed on tape c) videotaped d) other: _____________

4.02. All the expenses of the documentation process is covered by: a) Gallery b)Artist

4.03. Rights of use and duplication of documentary material (accept for the archival purposes) the Gallery can obtain only with special agreement with the Artist who is the sole copyright holder.

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5. CATALOG/ARTSTIC PUBLICATION/PRINTED INFORMATION

5.01. Gallery obliges to provide a: a) catalog b) publication c) printed information accompanying the exhibition/event following these specifications:

a) edition b) dimensions . c) number of pages .. d) author of the preface . e) number of copies (colour - black/white) f ) full price g) technique . 5.02. Catalogue/publication will be prepared in collaboration and with the approval of the Artist.

5.03. The costs of the production of the catalog/publications is the responsibility of the Gallery unless it was agreed upon differently:__________________________________________________________________

6. PROMOTION:

6.01. The Gallery is obliged to announce the exhibition/event in printed material it issues and in the media with prior approval of the Artist.

6.02. The Gallery is obliged to organize the opening of the exhibition/event announcing it with invitation cards with prior approval of the Artist.

7. In case the Artist is not able to prepare his/her works for exhibiting or to realize the concept of the event, then he/she is obliged to inform the Gallery _________ days before the opening. Thereby the responsibilities of the Author and the Gallery as defined by this agreement cease to be valid.

8. In case the Artist does not fulfill his/her obligations as stated in the articles 1.01, 1.04. and 7. of this agreement, the Artist obliges him/herself to compensate all the real costs and damage that resulted in the obligations of the Gallery toward third legal and private parties.

9. Additional arrangements:

10. This agreement becomes valid when signed by the Artist and the Gallery.

11. In case of legal dispute a Zagreb legal court will be consulted.

12. This agreement is drafted in . copies out of which one is for the Artist and for the Gallery.

Artist Signature Gallery representative signature

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